How do you ensure your newsletter is showcasing your best work, supporting your goals and boosting your reputation? Here are a few basic tips to get you started.
Understand your audience
The data you collect is likely to be opt-in, so your newsletter content should end up in the right inbox. But whose inbox? Consider all your key audiences, not just the obvious ones and make sure your content is relevant to them. Use your newsletter software to segment your audiences so that they receive the messages that are most relevant to them.
Set your goals
Make sure you know what you would like your newsletter to do. Many newsletters simply inform, but if there’s a call-to-action, make that very clear. Trusts and organisations often include links to drive donations to the PTA or other funding initiatives, as well as important events, consultations or polls.
Create a sense of the whole organisation
Parents and carers, for example, love to hear about student successes and read interviews about topics staff are passionate about. Make sure you also flag upcoming events, news and any initiatives which connect you to the parents, carers and the community you serve.
Katie Carruthers, parent and governor at a South East London secondary school says, “As parents, carers and governors, we all know about our own children’s participation in school, or our particular area of expertise, but the school newsletter is a brilliant way of seeing a picture of the whole school - and not just the academic side but all the extra curricular activities too - that really bring the culture and personality of the school to life.”
Prioritise your content with the most important content first. Follow a newsletter structure to focus your information, so your readers become familiar with it.
Decide how often
Think carefully about how often you can produce a newsletter and still keep content relevant. If it’s weekly, a short-form newsletter with a few main points and links will suffice. If it’s half-termly or termly, it’s likely to be longer than a few paragraphs and could link to other content for further reading.
Try to think about timing. Ensure your readers receive your newsletter at a convenient time, for example, a Friday afternoon so that they can read it over the weekend. Many email marketers believe that Tuesdays and Thursdays are good days for email communication. If your newsletter is online, your newsletter tool will be able to tell you what works best for you based on patterns of open rates.
Choose a format
Consider using a newsletter tool for accurate analytics, so you can see how people are engaging with your content via open rates, click-throughs and time spent online.
Many school trusts and education organisations prefer to produce a digital PDF, which looks more magazine-like. PDFs are easy to read on screen and mobile and you can link to them in the newsletter/news section of your website.
Whatever format you choose, your newsletter should look ‘on-brand’ in terms of the colours, fonts and logos you use. It's good to offer translations into other languages for inclusivity too.
To talk to us about your newsletter or any of your PR, communications or marketing needs, contact: jessica@sparrowhawkcommunications.com